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S05E06: The Druids are Pretty Chill, Actually
The red lady would have gotten away with it, if it weren't for you meddling adventurers! The gang heads into the woods where they meet the druid tribe supposedly behind the attacks on the town. They claim innocence, and the gang discovers that the tribe's leader and the town's mayor have both been manipulated by a tall woman wearing red. They investigate her home, finding it recently abandoned. A few scraps of mostly burned letters reveal correspondence between her and Taldic, referring to him as the White Horseman and herself as the Red Horseman. Editor's note: It turns out Kanye's "Woolly Berserker Claws" might actually be 'Wolvy' Berserker Claws. Background The group played Scooby Doo in the town of Interesting…, interrogating the victims of the suspected druid attacks. So far nothing seems like an actual attack other than the issues at the owl bear attack (that might not be an owl bear?). The last thing the group wanted to do was follow the tracks into the forest. Session The group get a room at the inn since it's getting pretty late and get rooms taken care of by the mayor. Kanye: Can I have Woodhouse watch? I mean stand watch? While I sleep? Kanye did not snore and slept like a baby. Which means everyone slept well. The group gets bacon in the morning and then head back to the house with the fraudulent owl bear tracks. (The family said nothing happened the night before). The group follow the owl bear tracks but then they suddenly disappear - Nissa then spots human tracks going off in a different direction, so the group follows that set of tracks. They reach a stream near the edge of the woods, where the footprints then seem to disappear, as if the owner was making efforts to hide tracks. I think Kanye got into his harness and Woodhouse has been carrying him this whole time.. The group decides to follow the stream deep into the woods. Averlyth notices Um noticing something, and then also notices that the group is surrounded by figures with arrows nocked. A voice: State your business. Kanye: MY NAME IS KANYE CANTALIBER OF THE HOUSE OF CANTALIBER. My group and I have come to the woods to speak to.. .... ..... .... the druids! One of the figures drops out of the tree - unremarkable looking human male with a patchwork fur cloak asking for our business. Apparently it's a bad time for us to be here - they've been preparing for war with the village. Human: So... so are you from the village? Kanye: We were AT the village. We've been through the village? DM: Where is anyone really from, anyways? The human eventually figures out that we're not quite villagers, but can't let us "blunder around" the village so he's taking us to the chief. Nissa catches the eye of the shortest druid - still 5 foot, but looks broody, maybe he's actually the snarky raven that's been sending messages for us? The druids take us deeper into the forest, careful not to leave any trace. We eventually are escorted to the camp, completely incorporated with the rest of the woods. We are led to the one imposing, extremely long structure in the area - everything else is tents, things that can be packed up quickly - in the middle is one enormous constructed structure with smoke coming out of the chimney. The main druid escorts us inside. Inside, we see what looks to be the communal area. People are eating, sleeping, just hanging out. There's one druid at the far end that appears to be just trying to rabble rouse; his audience is at varying levels of interest in what he has to say. We're moved up to the front of the hall, and the chief looks like he gives up his attempt. Kanye admires the furniture and notices that there are torches - open flames - every 20 feet or so on the outermost walls. Um is glaring at Kanye for paying attention to the fire. Averlyth is saying "don't you dare". The human attempts to introduce us to the chief, Willy Whitefeather. Kanye describes the group's motivations in the nearby village, and how we're here to investigate. Willy is entirely convinced that they plan on burning the nearby village down. He wants to do it because the villagers killed the white stag of the forest and raped his daughter. Kanye questions how they knew the white stag was killed; the druids are connected with the forest, and they have seen all the signs of the spirit of the forest being missing. Kanye sends Woodhouse to ask permission to serve the purest springwater, and then asks for permission to convene with the group. Willy curtly nods and turns around to go back to convincing the druids about war. We see about a third of the druids seem to be as angry as Willy, a third are sarcastically dismissing him off, and then a third appear to be on the fence. Kanye is very impressed by the crystal clear springwater. When we get a chance, Nissa informs the group that there had been a stuffed white stag head in the village's townhall, so that claim was real. Averlyth questions if the spirit of the forest can be reincarnated, and Nissa thinks it sounds right but isn't sure. The group agrees that we need more information on both Nissa makes eye contact with her special guard, Tapir Jones, who is standing about 5 ft away, and asks if he's allowed to talk to us. He happily agrees to tell us more about druid culture, and tells us that the stag is the heart of the forest. Nissa looks very interested in what he has to say and he appears to try to stay cool. He tells us that the stag is the spirit of the forest; it maintains order in the forest, keeping things moving the way things are supposed to be. When the stag dies, things get out of balance and animals start behaving in unusual ways, trees start misbehaving, life in general is not the way you'd expect. It seems like you can't "kill-kill" the heart of the forest, but there isn't any certainty as to how long it would take. Nissa then asks about the chief's daughter and T (Tapir, but no one calls him T other than Nissa) points to a sullen teenager off to the side. Nissa keeps chatting up T so that her emo friend Averlyth can go over to talk to her too. Kanye attempts to talk furniture craftsmanship with a guard, who is aggressively uninterested. A nearby druid, Bobcat the builder, who is sloshed on moonshine, very happily talks about how eco friendly everything is, how everything is made. Averlyth approaches the daughter, Raven Whitefeather, who introduces herself. Averlyth asks if her dad always acts like that, and she reveals that she had been talking to a boy, Jimmy Olson, in the village, and that nothing had even happened but her dad got mad and said she's not allowed to talk to him anymore. She also reveals that an advisor had come to the village recently, a 7 foot tall cloaked lady known as the Red Woman. Um notices that main dude in the "non-attacking faction" appears to have a very distinctive and familiar coat. Kanye deploys his portable workshop and the drunk druid is ecstatic. Averlyth, Um, and Nissa share notes. Nissa agrees that the guy with the coat is the same as the one described by Jemmifer back in town, so Um walks over to awkwardly chat. Um confirms that he's the one that's been seeing Jemmifer in the village, and he finds it hilarious that the husband does not know it was him. He doesn't seem to have much info on the red lady though. Also he does not seem to be that interested in anything that's directly impacting him. Nissa compliments Um for finishing a conversation. Kanye walks out of the pocket workshop and closes the door, forgetting the druid is inside. Woodhouse lets him out. Kanye stands on the table in the long room and announces he is looking for the 7 foot tall Red Woman. No one really does anything in response but then the Chief comes back and asks where we've landed. He also asks Kanye to come off the table. When questioned if we're going to tell the villagers what's going on, the group has trouble coming up with their story. Eventually Nissa calls out the Chief that his comment about his daughter being raped was not true, and he folds on that point but doubles down on how the white stag is still dead and it's still the villagers fault. (Also turns out her name is Lily, not Raven). Kanye offers to find the one that killed the white stag so that the punishment could be exacted on that individual instead and to convince the village to stop encroaching on the village- using his magic glasses. Willy agrees, but only gives us 24 hours to do our side of the deal. Kanye requests one thing - a 5 foot tall druid with maybe salt and pepper hair. (Nissa fist bumps him). Willy declines turning into a horse for the gang to ride back to the town. Before the group leaves, Kanye trades one of his tools with Bobcat for a druidic tool. Nissa talks to T the whole way back to town, asking him questions about nature that she not only already knows the answers to, but had already taught the group about on the way into the woods. As we approach the edge of the forest, T gets nervous. The group quickly debates whether or not T really needs to come into the village with us, and Kanye (in an amazing moment of insight) comments that it could be great to have T around to confirm that the stag wasn't just a normal stag bleached white. Nissa starts laying it on pretty thick, telling him how much we need an expert with us, and T is all in. Instead of taking our perfectly fine extra sets of human-sized clothes, Kanye instructs Woodhouse to tailor clothes for T from his own wardrobe. The group stops by the house with the owl bear attack first. T looks up and down the attack, thought it was an owl bear too at first, and then realizes it was fake. He doesn't know anything that could make this kind of mark. Kanye: Do you know where the red lady is??????? (the red lady is back at camp, we left her ages ago Kanye what on earth) The group decides to go back to the townhall, get dinner first, and talk to the bartender first. No one has given T a second look. We point out the stag to T, and he seems very visibly uncomfortable, which seems to indicate it's the real thing. Getting closer to the stag's head, Averlyth can feel a religious energy emanating from the piece. Nissa strolls up to the bar and starts asking Hayden about the stag head. He reveals that it was originally Baer Bahr (Bare Bear?) that slew the beast. Nissa then asks Hayden if he's seen any tall attractive ladies recently, and he reveals that the mayor's new advisor fits the bill. Kanye: I am Kanye Cantaliber Priscilla: I know who you are Kanye: We have reason to believe some of your problems are caused by .. a very tall lady. Apparently her name is Rose High-head, was sent from Neverwinter to help remote villages to grow, something about investing in the outer boroughs? She moved into a hunter's cabin on the far outskirts of town, just up the creek (it's drawn on our crude map). Nissa notices an expression of surprise on T's face - he's smart enough to not interject or say anything. Kanye double confirms again with the mayor that Bare Baer is at his house, and then the group decides to go to Rose's house. After we get away from the townhall, T questions Nissa about the red lady. Kanye gives T a huge pep talk to T about how shit's about to get real, saying "if there's anything you want to do WINK do it now". T leans over and kisses Nissa... while she's on Kanye's back??? She gives Kanye a fist bump while they're making out. The group approaches the hunter's cabin, which appears to be unoccupied. Averlyth casts detect magic a few ways away, and detects nothing. Casting it again up on the house, there is still nothing. Um looks through a window - there's no light, no movement, no signs anyone is here or has been recently. Um grabs the doorknob with his right hand. The door opens. The room is unlit but apparently everyone can see in the dark. It looks like someone has clearly been living in there for awhile now, but it's been unoccupied for a day or two. There are ashes in the hearth, messed up bedding on the bed, dirty dishes on the counter. Averlyth finds a long red gown in the closet - T points out that's the gown she was wearing with the druids. Which means she either has two gowns or she's not with the druids right now. Kanye finds a pile of rags on the floor and digging through them, discovers large hand-held claws and owlbear looking paws. There are some burned papers in the fireplace, but Nissa is able to dig up the scraps and piece together a few bits. One is a map tracking appearances of the stag in the forest, another is a correspondence between her and someone named TL, that she dubbed the white horseman (she was the red horseman), something about not focusing on their plans on a whole. Averlyth is trying to see if the gown will fit her, Kanye is testing out the claws on the wall to see if they match what we saw. Nissa is making out with T. Um didn't really find anything else either, but we already drew a pretty good conclusion. We head over to Baer Baer's house and knock on the door. Averlyth starts asking about the stag and Baer's resolve crumbles; he admits that he agreed to get paid by Rose to taking the carcass back to the village and take credit for the hunt. The next night he went to get paid by Rose, he was mauled by the bear. Kanye: Do you know where we can find her? Baer: The bear? Kanye: ... no. The gang decides we have enough information for the druids, so T proudly leads us out of the village and into the village. Kanye announces his identity and that Rose is the one that killed the white stag. Kanye and Averlyth have some difficulty explaining why Rose is the baddie. Nissa steps in with her "That's a Good Point Actually" - Willy acknowledges he had been manipulated, but was firm on the deal standing. The group goes back to the village and is able to convince Priscilla that she was manipulated by Rose. She easily agrees about talking to the villagers about not encroaching on the forest and giving the stags head back to the druids. All parties agree to chill the fuck out. Nissa stays an extra night at the village with T while everyone else is still negotiating with Priscilla about rewards. (Next time, the group will decide what the reward is.)